Last week the Senate passed its FY 2006 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill (H.R. 3010) with a total of $29.415 billion for NIH, a 3.7 increase over last year. In June the House passed its Labor-HHS bill with $28.507 billion, a 0.5 percent increase over last year that does not cover the cost of inflation.

The House and Senate will now meet in conference to negotiate the difference. Early indications suggest that conferees may be inclined to support the House appropriation for NIH, an amount less than the Biomedical Research Development and Price Index for FY06 (the best measure of price inflation for biomedical research). When funded below this Index, as during the past two years, NIH can support fewer research projects of all kinds, leading inevitably to slower rates of discovery, slower progress against disease, and less support for institutions that perform research and train new scientists.

The negotiations of this conference are expected to conclude next week, so it is critical that Members of the House of Representatives and the Senate hear from the members of the scientific community as soon as possible.